Capital squatters

There is a reason why polite reminders to vacate government premises may have gone unheeded in as many as 465 cases. The culture of state patronage that prevails in Delhi is habitually as opaque as it is gargantuan. The criteria that exist on paper are routinely tweaked by the government of the day to favour its own with complete impunity. Now that the apex court has made a welcome attempt to reinstate a sense of scandal in the process, it is an opportunity to bring in some long overdue reform in the government8217;s allotment of perks at public expense.

We may have travelled very far from the Gandhian restraint embedded in his injunction to ministers in Congress governments in the provinces after the 1946 elections: to 8220;8230;reduce the whole scale of salary and allowances in accordance with requirements8230; drawing what his conscience thinks just for himself and his family8230;8221; We may also take long years to get to the point where the government gives a housing allowance, rigorously estimated by an independent agency, to MPs, ministers and officials, instead of a free run over prime property in the heart of the capital. But what we can realistically press for is this: one, more transparency about the criteria for allocation of government accommodation and other perks and greater watchfulness against misuse. Two, the list of beneficiaries should be pared down. Why should artists, intellectuals and journalists, for instance, become candidates for domestication by the government of the day? This must be done urgently if public cynicism about the government and its working is not to grow any deeper.

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